This page collects my projects that don't easily fit into either the "software" or the "technical documentation" box.

Web resources I maintain

Other Things I'm Up To

I have designed an fvwm2 layout you may find interesting if you have a sufficiently large (1600x1200) monitor; see Eric's Big Blue-Steel Desktop.

Projects now On Hold or Dead

I used to publish a regular column of SF reviews in rec.arts.sf.written called "Raymond's Reviews'. I stopped when I lost my net access in 1993 and was too busy to resume it when I got access again. They're archived here.

I designed and maintain a netnews suite, TMNN-netnews, which includes threading, security and modularity features not paralleled in other news suites. This has become much less interesting as the S/N ratio of USENET has plummeted.

Past Projects

Chester County InterLink was an effort to develop a truly user-friendly and flexible Internet-access BBS. The project started in September 1993; we went on-line in February 1994. We had over 2000 users as of our second anniversary and usage has continued to rise since. You can go there, log in as `guest' with password `guest', and check it out.

Trove is a project I launched because I thought Sunsite was doomed. The classical model of Internet software archive scales poorly, requiring too much maintainer intervention. A better model of low-overhead, web-accessible software databases is badly needed. Trove was going to be it, until I got swamped. Fortunately the best ideas from Trove got picked up by SourceForge.

From February 1997 to late 1998 I co-maintained the Sunsite archive, the largest and most popular software repository in the Linux world (what is now Metalab). I designed and wrote keeper, the archiver's assistant software now used to maintain that site.

I worked with the Linux File System Standards Group and representatives from the BSD UNIX community to generalize the Linux File System Standard so it would define a common directory layout for open-source UNIX operating systems.

I was heavily involved in the GNU Emacs 19 development (in fact, I was the primary Emacs-lisp library person for about two years during 1991-1993). The vc.el mode for one-touch version control within Emacs was mine. So was the gud.el mode for universal debugger control, and the package-finder feature under the Emacs help system. I also wrote the support for package unloading in the Emacs 19 kernel.

I was for a couple of years an active member of the nethack developers' list. I wrote the color support, introduced blindfolds, and edited the `Guide to the Mazes Of Menace', the nethack manual.

I added many of the new features in pcomm-2.0, the UNIX clone of ProComm written and maintained by Emmet Gray, including the point-and-shoot dialer interface and the support for Zmodem-upload autorecognition.

I was one of the principal developers of the ncurses library, the open-source clone of System V curses distributed with Linux.

Future Projects

I am particularly interested in helping realize the following potentials of the Internet:

Cooperative distributed open-source development
I think the Linux development project is an exciting model for what is possible in the way of decentralized cooperation on the Internet. I would like to help develop tools to assist in network-distributed software development, version control, and documentation support.
Promoting PGP and other technologies for digital privacy
I have been a member of the cypherpunks list and will rejoin when I free up some time. I am very interested in technologies that promote individual freedom by making it difficult for governments and corporations to control or monitor network activity.

Sadly, I Too Am Mortal...

I want these projects to survive me. If you are reading this page and have information that I am dead, disappeared, seriously injured or otherwise unable to maintain a net.presence, take a look at my continuity page.